Story

Quote of the Day - "I am a firm believer in choice, not fate" - Ruth Silver

09:42 I got up about half an hour ago and I feel great! I forgot how good it feels to have a proper night's sleep. I got about 8 hours! Must get ready for college now.

09:59 Just washed my hair, at last. It feels so good! All nice and soft.

22:45 Got back from taekwondo about an hour ago and I am now SO tired. Damn two hour long sessions making me want to collapse in a little heap on the floor. I think it's worth it though, I mean I get to break fucking boards! (as well as some other seriously cool shit) Plus I feel like a total ninja doing some of the more awesome moves, so I guess all the pain and deadness is worth it. Damn it, I keep getting distracted (I don't really mind though, plus I already explained this to the person doing all the distracting) and I really don't know what to write about this evening. On top of all that I have to be up at 7:30 tomorrow morning to make a 3 and half hour train journey to Bristol, (another damn open day...) so I need to go to bed soon really. The whole university situation is really getting to me, it's like everyone is trying to tell me what to do, like constantly asking what I'm going to do, when I'm going to do stuff etc. I know it's very important but I would just like to make my own damn decisions about this, I'm practically an adult now and even if I'm not in age I feel I am in maturity. It's annoying though, I can't get people to stop because I know they have good intentions and I don't want to upset them. It all has to be finished so soon as well and I don't see why the fuck it has to be. I mean I won't even start university for at least a year, how long does it take them to fucking 'process' my application? The whole thing is just stressing me out so much and as such is making me feel rather down. It'll be quite exciting to go to Bristol though, simply because I don't have anyone to go with. Not even my parents could take enough pity on me to accompany me there. This means it will be the furthest I will have ever traveled on my own, so if you don't see me around tomorrow it's because something unfortunate happened to me on my travels.

I really can't think of anything else to write, far too tired and also finding it quite hard to care about writing this right now. Sorry guys, I'll be in a better mood tomorrow I promise. I'll leave you with part one of that story I was going on about yesterday, it was written all the way back in January which feels ridiculously long ago. If enough people like it (to be honest I think if one person likes it I will be pretty pleased) then maybe I'll start posting one part of it a week. Hopefully by then I will have also written some more of it (if I can get off my own arse) so it will continue nice and smoothly. That's the plan anyway. But things rarely ever go to plan for me.

One: Beach

I had always liked Bournemouth beach. I liked the feel of the sand between my toes and I liked the soft crash of the waves against the shore. There was a small alcove to the west of the main beach, formed by the cliff face curling around a patch of sand. It was blocked off from the rest of the beach by the cliff face itself, but you could walk along the top and look down there from above. There never seemed to be anyone down there. One day I decided I would go down. The cliff wasn’t steep like other cliffs; it just sort of sloped down towards the beach. Despite this, I still managed to stumble and trip over a lot that first time. Eventually I managed to find my own path down there that I could negotiate without falling over, and I was there every day, after school. That place was special to me because no one else knew how to get down there, so I was never disturbed. It was like an escape for me.

I was a fifteen year old boy and at the time the pressures of adolescence were confusing me. I just wanted to get away. Everyone at school seemed to be pairing up with everyone else, except me. I had never really fit in there anyway. All the other kids wore fashionable clothes and listened to whatever music was in the charts at the time. I wore ‘weird’ clothes and listened to everything that wasn’t in the charts. The majority of them also managed to look good most of the time as well. I had never really thought of myself as very attractive, but it had never really bothered me until now. They had all made fun of me at first and I got quite upset by it, but after a while I just ignored them and they ignored me. Now they just avoid me instead. It feels like I don’t exist most of the time.

The only person who acknowledged me was my aunt. Her name was Sarah, and I’d lived with her in her little cottage for as long as I could remember. I’d been told my parents had died in an accident a long time ago, but I wasn’t that sad about it. I mean sure, it’s a very sad thing to have happened, but I can’t really be very attached to people who I never knew. I didn’t really know much about the rest of my family, I was an only child and my few other relatives lived far away. Still, I was grateful for Sarah, we trusted each other and she was kind to me. She didn’t really mind me being at the alcove most of the time; maybe she liked to be alone too.

I suppose the only thing I was ever really that good at in school was maths. I found a simplicity and clarity in the system of number that I could not find anywhere else. Whenever I tried to explain this to anyone, they didn’t understand. Most people think maths is unnecessarily complex and difficult, but this is far from the case. Maths has set parameters and rules which cannot be broken; everything else is random and erratic, as far as I can tell. This affinity for maths likely made me more of an outcast, but I didn’t care. I loved solving equations, and the numbers made perfect sense to me. I guess it was another form of escape for me, really. I liked escaping.